006 Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
by Perilous Cowboy
Summary: A 100 Songs Prompt. After Illya's decision to defect, there was always bound to be consequences.


It wouldn't stop raining.

Illya was lost in a thousand yard stare. The kind that soldiers lost themselves in when they were fighting a battle which had long stopped being waged. Solo had seen it before on his face, usually followed by a tapping of his finger and broken furniture.

There was none of it this time. Just that stare. Just that look. Just the rain that hadn't stopped for days.

And just the dead man at his feet.

"Well, he was a hard one to take down, wasn't he?" he prodded gently. It was actual relief behind the words. He liked his arm to be firmly still in its socket and if Illya hadn't put a bullet between that dead man's eyes, it wouldn't have been. He rolled his shoulder as he spoke, eyes drifting to Illya's face.

To that stare.

"This is not THRUSH."

It wasn't the response he had anticipated and Solo paused, frowning slightly before he looked down at the body, trying to see if there was something there that he wasn't seeing. He was observant, recognized training in the man's movement and style. Familiar and...

A wave of understanding passed over him. "Ah," he let slip out. "KGB."

"Yes," Illya answered quietly, shame coloring the word. That would explain the stare.

Solo brushed a hand over his hair, trying to get the wet locks from his eyes. "I suppose this means that they aren't handling the separation well." Sarcasm. When did the KGB ever let one of their agents go easily? But to resort to this? He thought Illya had a better relationship with them than this. Thought he was more respected than to have an assassin at his back.

Illya had defected less than a month ago. Knowing what he was getting into, a decision that hadn't come lightly and had taken four missions together before it had solidified in the Russian's head that it was something he had to do. Apparently, it hadn't come without a price.

"No," Illya confirmed. "I know many secrets." Like it was an excuse for this. An excuse for someone coming after him.

"Perhaps you should talk to Waverly," Solo offered. "He does have pull with the KGB, in case you'd forgotten. Or..." Solo narrowed his eyes. "He did before he stole their top agent."

Illya didn't take the bait. He didn't latch onto the banter like he normally did. The arguing had become a natural, comfortable thing. It was the silence that got to Solo. The times when Illya went quiet and got lost inside that head of his. He'd read his file, in its entirety. Even before they'd been put together as partners. Volatile Personality Disorder. Psychotic episodes. It had concerned him at first, but the longer he worked with the man, the more he recognized it for what it was. Illya didn't like to be belittled, taken advantage of.

He'd had too much of that in his life.

"I know this man." Illya's voice was quiet. Reminiscent. "Ivan Polzin. He has wife, small child. Seven months we work together."

The words had Solo stilling. His eyes left Illya's face and focused again on the man laying dead at their toes. Part of what made this job easy was that the bad guys were often nameless. Or simply that, bad guys. Their cause and motivation justified the bullets it took to put them down. Nuclear threats. Biological warfare. Global pandemics. Everyone they went after had some part in some horrible scheme.

But not this man. He was KGB and while it could be said that America and Russia were at war with each other, that times were troubling, the KGB still was not a global threat. No more than America was in this arms race. Both wanted a leg up on each other, both saw each other as a threat, but at the end of the day, they simply wanted to be powerful. Not all consuming. Not like THRUSH.

Ivan Polzin was simply a KGB agent, and one Illya had worked with before. Not a bad guy. Just not on their side.

"He took several well aimed shots at you," Solo reminded the man, offering the encouragement that he had been right to fire back. Polzin hadn't been pulling his shots. They were meant to hit. It was Illya's skill that had kept them from doing so.

Still, the Russian was quiet, not looking up, even as he spoke quietly.

"He saw me as enemy.," he spoke softly, voice a deep growl in his throat, but not angered. Emotional to a different degree. "A traitor.."

Sometimes, it was the things that Illya didn't say that had the most impact.

Things that he didn't have to put into words, but were implied through the sometimes broken English he timbered out.

When he'd given up the KGB, when he'd knowingly and willingly gave his allegiance to a country other than Russia, Illya had known this was a possibility. Solo refused to believe that the thought hadn't crossed his mind. That he would never be allowed to return home, that he would be considered a traitor and a deserter and he had agreed to all of those things. It hurt to think that he would come to regret it. That a man with that much pride for his homeland, for his roots, had felt so abandoned by it, so compelled with good reasons to abandon it back.

Solo sighed. He was a man of many words and it was very seldom he found himself lacking them.

"Have I ever told you how I was caught?"

Illya frowned, tipping his head slightly to side glance at him. "No."

"A jealous ex-lover," Solo supplied, smile on his face. "Despite the _ex_ portion of our relationship, I...didn't see it coming. I could honestly say, I never thought she'd turn me in."

"You were thief," Illya commented dryly. "You deserve to be turn in."

Despite the words, a small scoffed chuckle escaped Solo's throat. Now _that_ was the Illya he enjoyed being exasperated with. "The point," he shook his head at the man, disbelieving in the scrutiny, "Is that when you make a decision as difficult as the one you made," he paused as Illya turned that steel piercing gaze on him, that raw emotion evident in his face like he didn't know what to do with Solo seeing the truth of the matter. "You'll burn bridges along the way. There will be those who choose to follow you and those who will be holding the torch. In which case, they've made their decision as well."

Illya seemed to mull that over. His gaze fell, looking at the blood soaking into the mud beneath their shoes. He then ran a hand over his face, to clear the water dripping from his nose, his brow. "You talk a lot," he said and Solo smirked, shaking his head again. No getting through to the big guy. "But you make good point."

That had Solo smiling a more genuine half smile, his hands in his pockets.

"You know," Illya said, his voice still low. "There are not many I call friend."

Pulling a hand quickly out of his pocket, Solo waved it once, silencing what ever may follow. "Please do me a favor and let's not get mushy here, Peril," the light words were said almost playfully.

Illya snorted. Amusement littering the noise. " _Cha_ ," he admonished wordlessly, the noise a familiar one from the man that signified Solo was simply being Solo at this point.

Solo watched Illya holster his gun, straighten his jacket and give another glance down at the man. On any other day, he would have kept his mouth shut. But today...he attributed it to the rain. Because sometimes it just didn't know when to stop and he thought Illya was getting tired of it.

"But, for the record, there aren't many I call friend either."

Illya's gaze met his once more. Sometimes, Solo thought that it was the words they didn't say to each other that had the most meaning.

"We don't speak of this again," Illya said, waving him off, frown turning his lips down. Playful.

"Absolutely not," Solo agreed, turning to get out of the rain. "Never."


End file.
